


without you i haven't a thing to do

by singagainsoon



Series: Entomologist AU [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Awkward Romance, Cis Character, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Emotionally Repressed, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Trans Newton Geiszler, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 21:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15958295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singagainsoon/pseuds/singagainsoon
Summary: Two weeks ago, he’d been in the midst of furiously tapping out an absolutely incensed email to the man who somehow managed to consistently infuriate him from another department, even, and what Hermann would have given then to strangle him, truly - and then Dr. Geiszler himself had appeared in Hermann’s doorway, toeing the carpet with his scuffed up Doc Martens and asking if they might try to talk things out over dinner.Hermann hadn’t known it was a date.





	without you i haven't a thing to do

**Author's Note:**

> just a lil something for the au that erica and i have been talking about where newt is an entomologist and hermann is an astronomer and they work in the same building and fall in love!! also i gave herm piercings because its cute. catch me on twit @kaijubf

Newton’s hand is warm, heavy against the anxious fluttering of Hermann’s stomach. He has never allowed anyone to be this close to him before, and the novelty has not quite worn off. Newton presses his lips to Hermann’s neck, his ear, his jaw, his shoulder. Hermann is grateful, then, for the comfort of the darkness that hides his blush-tinged cheeks. It is entirely unreasonable for him to _still_ be flushed, considering it has been a good twenty or so minutes since he had pulled out of Newton and begun to doze, but Hermann feels the heat remaining beneath his skin nonetheless. His lips still tingle and buzz pleasantly where Newton had kissed him.

He can only imagine what their colleagues would think if they caught wind of their recent-but-passionate affair. Subtlety is not Newton’s strong suit, nor is flirting Hermann’s. Perhaps everyone has long picked up on it. Perhaps they noticed Newton sauntering to Hermann’s office to bring him lunch in a brown bag like he had left it at home that morning. The implications had bothered him at first, almost as much as the prying eyes of his nosy colleagues. Now, the gesture is tinged with an air of sweetness, and he’s found himself looking forward to it. Hermann wonders idly if Newton has not already told half the entomology department something vague about his “boyfriend”.

Are they “boyfriends”, even? Hermann is not certain.

Newton’s thumb strokes the dip of his stomach, along the little trail of barely-there hair that disappears beneath the waistband of his white cotton briefs, over the small bruise Newton had sucked onto the skin there half an hour previous. He pauses his rhythmic petting to thumb at the stainless steel bar nestled in the sweet little twist of his navel, the secret manifestation of Hermann’s young-adult rebellion that he had not had the heart to remove. He inhales sharply, a little hiss sucked through gritting teeth. Newton adores it, as it turns out. Conveniently, Hermann has recently discovered that he quite likes to have it tongued, or tugged gently between Newton’s straight white teeth.

Hermann’s stomach flips beneath the splay of Newton’s hand, dizzying and new. He is solid, sturdy, small - Newton is something entirely different out of his work clothes, something crackling with more life and energy than one human should reasonably be able to contain, and he is pressed sweetly against the crooked curve of Hermann’s back, one arm flung over Hermann’s side and the other propped between his head and his pillow. His bare toe nudges the back of Hermann’s leg, asking silent permission to sling it over Hermann’s Good Hip.

Hermann thinks he might very much like to be Newton’s boyfriend.

“You wanna go again?” Newt asks, slipping his thumb suggestively beneath the wide elastic holding Hermann’s underwear around his slender hips. He cannot keep himself from moaning lightly and letting his eyes fall closed. He could get hard again easily, readily, even; but his bones are heavy under the stretch of his skin, his head lethargic. Newton, however, is bursting with energy at all times, it seems. Hermann reaches behind him for Newton’s leg, situates it across his Good Side and arches into Newton’s roaming hand. His palm glides smoothly over the gooseflesh that springs up in its soothing wake. The slope of Newton’s nose bumps up against Hermann’s neck, his chin digging lightly into his shoulder.

“Hm?”

“Seriously, though, I’d probably jizz my pants in, like, five minutes.”

Hermann’s face scrunches in dainty distaste though he knows Newton cannot see it. “Don’t be crass, Newton.”

“ _Hermann_. I can’t help it, dude, not when you’re slinging that massive dick around like it’s-”

“Newton!”

Newt chuckles, low and throaty. “Alright, I was only teasing. Well- no, I wasn’t. I meant that. So, what do you say?” Newton cranes his neck to nuzzle just behind his ear, feathering past the small stainless steel studs and rings that decorate him. His fingers tap lightly at Hermann’s side. He gives a little hum. It is a noise Hermann recognizes as universal contentment.

No amount of careful consideration could have prepared Hermann’s by-the-numbers life for the variable that is Newton Geiszler.

“Maybe later, darling,” he mutters, inhaling the perpetual clean-laundry-and-strawberry-shampoo smell of Newton’s bed. Newton presses his mouth to the side of Hermann’s head in a lazy almost-kiss. While it is true that he’d spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about bending Newton over and railing some sense back into him, Hermann never once would have expected the sentiment to be mutual. He settles his own hand atop Newton’s, relishing the small shape of it, the bumps of his knuckles, the little raised scars from sharp dissection tools. “Here- Newton, sweetheart, come over this way, hm?”

“Okay, just, uh- stay still,” Newt says, disentangling himself carefully from Hermann’s spindly limbs and climbing over him with no small amount of gracelessness. He lands near Hermann’s concave chest with a _plop_ and an “Oof”, and the comfortably-worn mattress creaks beneath his weight. Hermann’s arms settle around him, guiding his small figure closer. He heaves a sigh, puddling as though he has belonged at Hermann’s side his entire life.

Two weeks ago, he’d been in the midst of furiously tapping out an absolutely _incensed_ email to the man who somehow managed to consistently infuriate him from another department, even, and what Hermann would have given then to strangle him, truly - and then Dr. Geiszler himself had appeared in Hermann’s doorway, toeing the carpet with his scuffed up Doc Martens and asking if they might try to talk things out over dinner.

Hermann hadn’t known it was a date.

His heart spreads gossamer wings, flutters them experimentally in his chest. Something has shifted somewhere, a vague alignment of things eventually-meant-to-be. Hermann feels it. He wonders if Newton can feel it, too - the little warm yellow fragments of daydreams (grading papers together on the couch, sitting hip-to-hip, or strolling aimlessly through the park on a crisp autumn afternoon; there is laughter there, always, and something bigger than the two of them, than the universe, than anything), feeling as if his chest is host to a warm bowl of soup, sated and full of something quite like love.

“I’m quite fond of you, Newton,” Hermann mumbles, squishing his cheek into the top of Newton’s mussed hair. It is no big news, though Hermann feels it bears saying anyway, if only for the purpose of at last getting it off his chest. “In spite of our… rather numerous disagreements.” _Grievances?_ The correct word to describe their years-long work contentions evades him, but Newton’s hair smells nice, he notes. He is quickly becoming quite the sap, though Hermann doesn’t think that he minds all that much.

Newt laughs beneath him, his body shaking with the effort. He moves as though he is going to climb out of bed and leave Hermann to wonder exactly where he had gone wrong, but he just turns on the lamp with a muted _click_. Hermann squints. Cast in yellow and shadow, Newton’s eyes are a twinkling hazel. He studies Hermann a moment like something trapped beneath a microscope. Hermann’s eyebrows draw in, face pinching in an irritated frown. “What?”

Newton’s lips spread into a lovely, dopey grin. Hermann resists the urge to kiss the dimpled corner of his mouth. “I kinda figured that when you kept coming back,” he teases. “It’s my boyish charm, isn’t it? You can’t resist me.”

“Piss off.” Hermann’s instinct is to roll over, away from the overwhelming glow of Newton’s unabashed adoration, but Newton catches the sharp lines of his face in one hand before he can squirm out of reach. His heart skips a beat then _thuds_ twice as hard against the notches of his rib cage to make up for it. Hundreds of tattooed eyes - beetles, moths, butterflies, spiders - watch him, peeking from beneath the blankets heaped over Newton and spiraling out of sight beneath them. They make him a bit nervous, truthfully, though it does not keep him from tracing the wing of a death’s head moth with the end of his blunt fingernail. A minuscule shudder ripples along Newton’s vertebrae.

“I really do like you, though, Herm,” Newton says, his voice small but sure, brushing his thumb over Hermann’s cheek. Hermann’s wildly-beating heart leaps into his throat, knocks hard against his adam’s apple and leaves him near breathless. This feels like some sort of fever dream, something happening to somebody else through a lens, far too good to really be true. Newt’s index finger trails absently along the shell of his ear, past his numerous piercings, and settles on the soft place between his earlobe and jaw. He handles Hermann with the meticulous delicacy he imagines Newton reserves for the fragile forms of specimens in his lab, like he is something precious to be treasured and cared for (and mounted in a shadow box with a pin through his middle - so to speak).

Hermann sputters, feels his face heat quickly under Newton’s vaguely sweaty palm. “I- as I’m sure you know, I rather, ah, like you as well. Very much, actually. In the event that I was less than clear, I-”  
  
Newton cuts him off with a kiss, swallowing Hermann’s startled squeak along with all the air in his lungs. His heart is a drum, a moth’s wings beating desperately against the hot glass of a light bulb, and it squeezes painfully. It is the sweet sort of pain Hermann thinks that he would like to feel always, dull and aching and reminding him constantly that there is a man he loves dearly. He wriggles his arm from between their bodies to scoot Newton close by the curve of his ass, the soft bit resting at his hips.

It is with a tangible reluctance that they break for air, foreheads resting together. _I love you_ , Hermann wants to say. What comes out is, “Does this mean the two of us are seeing each other?”

Newton smiles again, and Hermann is willing to bet that the noise his heart makes when it splits directly down its middle into two symmetrical, lovestruck halves is audible. “Considering I’ve been referring to you as my boyfriend, I really hope so.”

Hermann’s laugh is more of a bark, a loud thing that startles Newton into giggling harder until he is pink-faced and short of breath. “Goodness!” He manages, wheezing a bit with the strain of laughter, clutching Newton to him. They hold each other as their hearts quiet and wait for Newton’s bedroom to stop spinning around them. Newt hefts his leg carefully over Hermann's, nudging absently at his knee with his bare toe, prodding lower until there is nothing left to poke.  

The sheets whisper, rustling against their skin as they shift. Hermann does not have it in him to lay flat on his back, just as Newton does not seem to want to be any further away from him. He moves again, restless energy propelling his limbs perpetually forward, and slides his leg between both of Hermann’s, prodding his knees apart. Newton mutters something about Hermann’s skin being so cold, follows it up with something else about how he will have to fix that. He is only half-listening. Hermann scratches his fingertips along the natural spiral of Newt’s scalp. Newton sags against his chest, curling in on himself and Hermann like the beautiful collapse of some well-loved black hole in a distant corner of the universe.

They will likely shower, and Hermann will steal away with one of Newton’s old university-logo hoodies to pull over a fresh shirt; and the pair will go down the street to have a milkshake (for Newton) and a Diet Coke (for Hermann) and split an order of hot, salty fries. More accurately, Newton will insist that he does not want fries and proceed to pick them from Hermann’s basket anyway, twirling them in an excessive blot of ketchup.

For now, though, the pair lay still. Hermann is nearly positive that regardless of their plans for the evening, he will likely end up splayed helpless on the couch beneath Newton’s hungry, kissing mouth while the television drones on, forgotten. They have been making a habit of this - whatever “this” is - for two weeks now (two weeks exactly; Hermann is counting and will continue to count), and Hermann still fumbles, stutters, flushes his way through sex. Newton does not appear to mind in the least, all encouraging moans and gasping praise, the pretty picture of easy confidence. Hermann is on the upswing of a constant learning curve.

Newton’s breaths even out beside him, against him, within him. For once, Hermann does not feel as though his hands are stones, isn’t out of place and spinning like a solar system trapped in a gawky body. Newt’s hand rests limp on the angled jut of Hermann’s hip, the pieces of him that don’t belong, his head heavy with impending sleep. He is a marvel, a miracle, an improbability.

Hermann thinks he will allow Newton to leave the lights on this time.


End file.
